Are progressive policies creating homeless, or attracting them?

by Rob Roper

Governor Scott and the House and Senate Democrat majorities are at loggerheads over the motel voucher program that pays to put up homeless in, well, motel rooms. The governor vetoed the budget adjustment bill over a $1.8 million spending increase for the program and is threatening to do so again if a revised version doesn’t remove it. So far, it doesn’t.

Though a version of motel voucher program has existed for a long time, in the past it was used as a short-term safety net usually during extreme weather conditions. However, during Covid an infusion of over $200 million in federal emergency funds and a relaxation of the requirements to participate expanded the program significantly into what amounts to de facto permanent subsidized housing. And, when the Covid emergency went away along with the federal funding, VT Democrats insisted on maintaining the program – only now at Vermont taxpayers’ expense.

So here we are with the Democrats in the legislature saying we have to keep this going because we have a homeless crisis, and the governor insisting that we cannot afford to do so and need more cost-effective solutions. Amid this debate comes the question of who exactly is using this program that cash-strapped Vermonters are paying for? Vermonters down on their luck, or a bunch of freeloaders from other states who are coming here to live off Vermont taxpayers’ many dimes.

Those who claim the latter are met with shouts that evidence supporting that theory are purely anecdotal. Which is true. It’s also true that the evidence supporting the opposite argument is purely anecdotal because nobody running the program or monitoring it keeps track of where the people using it came from. (Note to bureaucracy: maybe do this!)

But either answer is damning to our state’s progressive policies. Vermont has the fourth highest rate of homelessness in the country and were only knocked out of second place due to major, community-destroying natural disasters like the wildfires Hawaii. So, either our debilitating progressive economic policies are creating an inordinate amount of homegrown homelessness, or our overly generous progressive welfare policies are attracting homeless folks from elsewhere.

As for the first hypothesis, it’s worth noting that Vermont has one of the most highly educated populations in the nation in terms of percentages of high school, college, and post graduate degrees. Our unemployment level of 2.6 percent is tied with South Dakota for second lowest – that’s good. Our median household income is above the national average, ranking 17^th from the top out of 50. Given those metrics, the legislature would have to have really done quite the job to take that level of talent and opportunity and reduced it to one of the highest per capita homeless rates in the continent! But this is plausible. Our governance is that bad.

Looking at the second hypothesis, I was struck recently by an article in Seven Days about a homeless couple. The line that jumped out at me was this one, “The couple came to Vermont in summer 2022 from Tallahassee, Fla., where they’d met on the street. Winn had done her research and knew that Vermont provided comparatively generous food stamp benefits.” Hmmmm.

So, someone who is down on their luck in Florida does some research and discovers the best place to get outsized taxpayer funded benefits is Vermont and moves here in order to get them. Though they came for the food stamps, the story opens with the protagonist and her husband excitedly learning that their stay in the motel voucher program had been extended another month so they wouldn’t have to move out. Good grub, nice digs!

Moreover, and here’s the kicker, when the subjects of this story achieved some financial independence due to a friend receiving $23,000 in back Social Security benefits, their plan was to leave Vermont for someplace, LOL, more affordable. It would be one thing if folks came here, utilized the system to get back on their feet, and then became productive members of the local economy, but our state is not set up for that (see hypothesis #1). Sadly, this plan did not come to fruition as the woman was diagnosed with cancer and the couple returned to Vermont, presumably for the medical benefits.

Now, I cast no aspersions at the folks taking advantage of our system. Them’s the rules, and they’re just playing by them to their best advantage just as the wealthy exploit loopholes in tax law, non-profits apply for grants, etc. Who wouldn’t? If you need food and someone’s handing it out, you eat it. If you’re living in a tent and someone is willing to hand you the key to a motel room, you grab it. If you’re sick and someone is willing to pay for your care, you’re sure as heck taking them up on the offer.

The question before Vermonters now is what levels of taxpayer funded charity are we willing and able to fund, under what conditions, and for whom. The progressive answers of “any level” under “any conditions” for “anybody” is not grounded in fiscal reality, nor does it ultimately play out to societies benefit. As for the question posed in the sub-headline of this post, are Vermont’s progressive policies creating or attracting a homeless crisis, I’m going to bet big that it’s a lot of both.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com